Blog

The true cost of your staff retention problem

You’re trying to establish a successful business profile and gain credibility among your peers and clients — but your staff just aren’t sticking around.

Did you get the culture fit right? Was the bar set too high or was the initial project not challenging enough? Was your newest team member provided with an adequate onboarding experience and was there enough guidance for them to really get to know you and where they fit?

No matter the size of the organisation — these elements of recruiting are often overlooked. It can be hard to find the time and money to allocate to adequate training and onboarding when your team is very small. But it matters more than you realise.

On the flip side, when your business is in hyper-growth mode, or already very large with multiple locations and departments — it can be difficult to immerse your new employee in an environment where they feel fully engaged and supported. Are you throwing the whole company book at them without identifying the chapters that relate specifically to them?

Expecting staff to use their initiative is one thing, however failing to provide the right information for them to do a great job and hit the ground running is setting them up for a fall.

You should be aiming to lift every member of staff to a higher level and empowering them to be the best they can. Their knowledge directly reflects your brand to your customers so the more they understand and the better they communicate, the more success your brand enjoys.

Inspiring a new starter to want to come to work and do a great job starts with communication and culture.

Money talks and underwhelmed employees walk

Let’s talk numbers here, because your employee’s unhappiness and confusion can be measured.

Lost productivity due to new hire learning curves can cost from 1% to 2.5% of total business revenues (urbanbound)

In the U.S. and U.K., an estimated $37 billion is spent annually to keep unproductive employees who don’t understand their job (Forbes)

It’s an all too familiar story and fingers are usually pointed at the employee. But you hired them for a reason. And whilst not every new hire is going to work out, your investment in people needs to go beyond the hire itself and create the foundations for a successful relationship that is built over time.

Educating your employees with the right information, that’s valuable to them and easy to find when they need it, is crucial to the longevity of that role.

Allowing that person to dive deeper, discover and explore more about your mission and how they can be part of creating your success story is as simple as providing the right learning and nurturing environment — that doesn’t leave anyone behind.